Alright, here goes nothing.
I was dissappointed. From the material that I have read on this blog and commentary I have heard from other readers, I was really excited to read this book. The excitement came from both the comments of other readers and the perspective I thought the book would bring. "Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the crucible of of college football." The title implies and suggests that the book would put the Rich Rod era in both a national and historical perspective. I went into the book believing that somehow my perspective and/or opinion on the Rodriguez era would be clarified, altered, confirmed, something. What I got was a rehash of information I already had. If I believed that the book was written for a mass audience with little information or backround on the Michigan football program, than my opinion on the book would probably be different, but the matter of fact way that many things in the book are described (this blog being one of them) suggests to me that the book was in fact intended for people who already knew too much about Michigan football and wanted to know more.
With that in mind, I don't think the book told me anything that I did not know before. For a person who supposedly spent so much time with Rodriguez, Rodriguez's actions and words in the book seem so canned, so cliche , that he comes off as more of a characiture that anything. Events in the book seem random, and are set forth with little conviction or any insight into what compelled the actors to take action. (What would compel a man portrayed as so level headed to dump over a gatorade stand after a loss against a good team in a fairly close game when the first year is defined as the '"lose big" year.) The book seems to imply so much depth but never scratches past the surface, of anything really, the games, the players, the coaches. Coach Rod's ultimate demise at Michigan was his failure to win due to a failure to field a well coached defense, but the defensive coordinator switch is not even discussed, and the defensive debacle only hinted at in some spots with RR saying "we can't stop anybody." There has to be more to the story, and if you are going to write a book you might as well tell it, some of it, any of it?
I also felt the book was less than candid in some aspects, at least with regard to some key moments. To imply that the "Raise me Up" incident could have been some sort of random coincidence, that the song just happened to be loaded and ready to go right about the same time that Rodriguez was saying the same words without any aforethought, come on man. And why would a team so desparate to keep their coach, to the degree of giving him a "thank you" standing ovation, give up on their bowl game to the extent they were laughing at half time.
I don't know. I cannot write a book (though this post may have seemed like one) so it may not be my place to critique or criticize, but I was underwhelmed, and I feel like I was had to a certain degree. Anybody share similar sentiment?
Perhaps you already knew this stuff because you read a dozen interviews of John U. Bacon and read countless posts about "Three and Out" on message boards before you read it.
That's kind of the problem with reading a book or watching a movie that everyone's talking about already - it loses its sense of originality.
I don't think you were "had." I think you should have read the book sooner. Or skipped all the spoilers that have been posted here (and elsewhere).
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